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How Much Internet do I Really Need?

We probably just love to boast that our internet speed is so fast it can literally blow off the hairs on your head. But the real question here is if you should be paying more for a faster internet? What if you are paying for 12 Mbps and, on a daily basis, your household only consumes 8 Mbps of those at the toughest of times?

On the other hand, we like it or not, when it comes to stability, well, let´s just say that internet is like those fad relationships you have been in. Sometimes you are going super fast and that 45 Gig game downloaded in record time but others, the Roku started to buffer in the best part of the Netflix movie.

Let´s take a look at the advice of some experts regarding the amount of internet you need when it comes to your overall activities.

How does Internet Speed add up

First, little basics. The bandwidth you pay for gets distributed among your devices based on need. Now, you can make a partition to assign a certain amount of bandwidth to a specific device, but why would you want to do that? Plus, not all ISPs might give you enough administrative privileges to do that.

So, in easy terms, if your Netflix device is using 25 Mbps and you have a connection of 30 Mbps, you will have those extra 5 Mbps for the rest of the house. Which is fine, since not many devices use that much bandwidth.

Video Streaming

Video streaming is one of the activities that spends the most bandwidth. Netflix says, for instance, that you need a 5Mbps bandwidth to stream in HD. This is a rough average since you could do with less speed but if that is the only speed you have available, sending an email might make your stream buffer.

Now, if you are planning on streaming ultra-HD at 4K, you might want to consider packages that offer more than 25 Mbps. That is the amount of bandwidth required for such streaming.

Online Video Gaming

If you are a hardcore gamer and love to do online gaming, our guess is that a 25 Mbps of download speed should be good. Even if you stream video games, that amount should be enough. Just remember that online gaming or video game streaming will usually take up all of your bandwidth.

Other Activities

Your ISP provider will probably want you to take up their most expensive package and the fastest speed. As stated before, you should consider your household. Plus, a faster connectivity does not always mean a faster connection. Some websites might limit the download bandwidth they allow, giving you a slow downloading. So much for a super fast speed.

Experts agree that, for an average household, you should not be paying for anything above 20×5. That is 20 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload. If you are paying for a 100 Mbps download speed, you will not always be using all that bandwidth but whenever you have 4 devices all connected to Netflix, for example, you will have what you need at that moment. This is like having a car that can speed up to 160 mph but you nearly never go at that speed.